Zoe Saldana Opens Up About Star Trek 4 Delay
Zoe Saldana says that the Star Trek 4 delay has a lot to do with the schedules of the various cast and crew, and also something specific about the project she wouldn't name.
Zoe Saldana says she thinks the main reason Star Trek 4 was taken off Paramount‘s release schedule in September was the simple fact that schedules for the cast and crew simply couldn’t align. That isn’t a huge surprise considering a lot of the news leading up to the announcement, but apparently that isn’t all the Guardians of the Galaxy actress thinks is delaying the sequel. She said she thinks another factor is “something else to do with the project,” though she didn’t specify.
Zoe Saldana talked about the Star Trek 4 delay with Deadline’s 20 Questions podcast (via TrekMovie): “We were in touch with J.J. [Abrams] and we were trying to sort of see if we were going to be able to this past fall. I don’t think it was possible. I have my sort of ideas that maybe it was just like schedules were very… we couldn’t manage to get a whole cast and a whole crew to sort of come together.”
She also added, “But I think as well it probably has something else to do with the project. But I know that we’re all on the same page that we would love nothing more than to be able to come back.”
With nothing more than Zoe Saldana’s vague mention of “something else” holding up Star Trek 4, there’s barely room to even speculate. But as far as what she has to say about schedules; sadly it isn’t surprising considering the stories that surfaced almost as soon as Paramount announced the film had a green light.
Soon after Paramount announced that Zoe Saldana and the rest of the surviving lead Kelvin cast would be returning for Star Trek 4–and furthermore that the film would begin filming by the end of 2022–Chris Pine made it clear this was the first he or his representation had heard of it. Soon more stories surfaced that Paramount had neglected to share the shooting schedule with anyone else in the lead cast before dictating their schedule to the world.
One of the cast’s biggest stars, Karl Urban who plays Dr. McCoy in the series, was the first to say in no uncertain terms that he wouldn’t be filming Star Trek 4 by the end of 2022 because he was already committed to shooting Season 4 of Amazon Prime’s The Boys through the end of the year.
In retrospect it seems that perhaps Paramount was pursuing a hopeful “ask forgiveness, not permission” policy, but if so it was incredibly unwise. All you have to do is consider some of the other big franchises Zoe Saldana, Chris Pine, and other members of the Star Trek 4 lead cast are attached to in order to realize what a foolish decision it was to not firm things up first.
Chris Pine is attached to Wonder Woman and now Dungeons & Dragons. Karl Urban has The Boys, The Lord of the Rings, and possibly one day (fingers crossed, people) Judge Dredd; Simon Pegg has Star Wars and Mission: Impossible; and Zoe Saldana–long before Paramount saw fit to finally green light Star Trek 4–has been committed to more Guardians of the Galaxy, Avatar, and Colombiana.
These aren’t the people you dictate schedules to, and Paramount should have known better.
